Talk of the Town: President to honor Green Valley volunteer

President George W, Bush will present the President’s Volunteer Service Award to Mary Frances Ward prior to his departure from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on Friday.

Ward is a volunteer with Experience Corps and Valley Presbyterian Church. To thank them for making a difference in the lives of others, Bush honors a local volunteer when he travels throughout the United States. He has met with more than 650 volunteers, like Ward, since March 2002.

Ward is a volunteer with Experience Corps, a volunteer program for people over age 55, administered by the Volunteer Center of Southern Arizona,

Experience Corps members tutor and mentor elementary school students, help teachers in the classroom, and lead after-school enrichment activities.

Ward volunteers at Harriet Johnson Primary School, where she uses 35 years of experience as an educator to help students with early literacy skills. Ward also conducts training sessions for new Experience Corps volunteers.

In addition, Ward is an active volunteer at Valley Presbyterian Church, where she serves as a lay leader on the Stephen Ministry Team, a program that provides care and support to parishioners experiencing a life crisis. Ward also volunteers as a teacher in the church’s grief recovery workshops.

The president will fly into Southern Arizona on Thursday night for a breakfast fundraiser Friday morning for State Senate President Tim Bee, R-Corona de Tucson. Bee is running for Congress against incumbent Democrat Gabrielle Giffords.

He’s no regular Joe!

Actor and longtime Valley Players member Joe Tufigno knows his stuff when it comes to acting. I thought it would be kind of nice to look back on one actor’s impact on Green Valley audiences who always expect a command performance when Joe is on stage. He’s never let them down.

A former educator with high school directing as part of his duties, Joe has natural abilities to interpret a character, transforming himself into whatever the role demands. I can count on one hand the number of actors who memorize lines overnight, and Joe is in that number. Not only does he know the script inside and out, he knows the other actors’ lines as well.

In the dozens and dozen of roles I’ve had the privilege of seeing him perform, his performance in “Love Letters,” a Pulitzer Prize for Drama-nominated play by A. R. Gurney, is one of the most memorable. He starred as Andrew Makepiece Ladd III with the late Valley Players actress Alice Butler as Melissa Gardner.

The play centers on just two characters. Using the epistolary form sometimes found in novels, they sit side by side at tables and read the correspondence in which they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats that have passed between them throughout their separated lives. It is only at the sad ending that they realize they were really love letters all along.

Their performances left the audience speechless with emotion.

I did not have the opportunity to see what has become known as Joe’s signature role, Sheridan Whiteside in “The Man Who Came to Dinner” which in 1989 was billed as Valley Players’ “most ambitious” production. (I didn’t arrive in Green Valley until the early 1990s.)

The character of Whiteside is modeled after Alexander Woolcott, an American author and drama critic known for his acerbic sense of humor, eccentricity, and flamboyance.

From remarks of those who saw this production, Joe was superb! From many of his fellow actors the tributes flowed.

Joe talks about that role with great affection and there is no doubt that “The Man Who Came to Dinner” was a golden production because of his talent.

Another winner was “Move Over, Mrs. Markham!” by Ray Cooney, which opened in March 1989. Joe was on stage with other popular longtime Valley Players actors Jim McCarr, Majorie Walker and Phyllis Lites, as well as Judy Schultz, Lorraine Michaels.

Thanks, Joe. I have been on stage with you and have learned so much. When I couldn’t remember my lines—you did for me. We are all better performers because of actors with passion like Joe Tufigno!

One of my favorite Joe Tufigno stories was when I was doing stage make-up for a show he was starring in and I was applying his stage make-up before opening night. I told him not to worry. He was playing an older character and I reassured him saying. “Don’t worry Joe, I’ll make you look 80,” to which he replied, “Regina, I am 80.”

rford@gvnews.com | 547-9740